Economics: And so I raise my estimate of the neutral interest rate r* by 0.01%-point. Payroll employment, seasonally adjusted, looks to have been 479,000 higher in mid-January than we had thought yesterday that it had been in mid-December:

Bureau of Labor Statistics: January Employment Situation Summary: ‘Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 353,000 in January, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, and social assistance. Employment declined in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry… <bls.gov/news.release/em…>